1 8 BIRD-LAND ECHOES. 



nothing. Do these ever-present thrushes know our 

 purposes, and sit up all night that they may antici- 

 pate us ? I have never yet whistled to my dog be- 

 fore some robin has whistled to the wind. But 

 better next to the head than at the tail of the pro- 

 cession. I had come out this misty, warm, un- 

 seasonable December morning to see at closer hand 

 the many sparrows that had thronged the hedges 

 and tangled nooks and corners of neglected fields 

 the day before. As day drew on apace they threw 

 off their sleepiness, and everywhere the quiet country 

 trembled with the melody of their united voices. 

 There were sparrows from the mountains that had 

 come to winter with us ; there were others that 

 prefer these old haunts of mine to any other spot, 

 and, be it cold as ice or hot as the summer's sun 

 can make it, are never driven from their nesting 

 sites. Here and there was an overstaying bird, its 

 fellows generally having gone southward weeks be- 

 fore, and one great flock of thistle-finches, in coats 

 as rusty as dead leaves, held to the tree-tops as if 

 ever on the lookout for news to convey to their 

 hedge-haunting cousins ; but I did not see that the 

 latter regarded them as sentinels. It was essentially 

 a sparrow day, such as I have often seen before, but 

 never to such excellent advantage. 



The sun, like a tarnished silver disk, shone through 

 a veiling of ashen clouds. The all-pervading light 

 came apparently directly from the frost-encrystalled 

 ground, and there were no shadows. Not a leaf 

 stirred of those still clinging to the trees nor skeleton 



